Читать книгу: «If Sinners Entice Thee», страница 15
Chapter Eighteen
Sinned Against
Liane’s first inclination was not to comply with the request, for knowing the crafty nature of this woman, she feared that the words had been written merely to place her off her guard. Yet immediately after luncheon at the Villa Chevrier on the following day she declared her intention of going down to the English library to get some books, and leaving her father and the Prince smoking over their liqueurs, went out upon the Promenade. As soon, however, as she was out of sight of the windows of the villa, she hailed a passing cab and drove to the Grand Hotel, where she found George sitting in a wicker-chair in the doorway, consoling himself by smoking a cigarette and awaiting her.
“You have come at last,” he cried, approaching the carriage. “Don’t get out. We will drive straight to the station,” and stepping in, he gave the man directions.
“What does this mean?” inquired Liane, eagerly.
“I cannot tell its meaning, dearest,” he answered. “I merely received a note, saying that you would call for me on your way to Monaco.”
“Have you no idea why she desires to see both of us?”
“None whatever,” he replied.
“You have found her,” she observed in a deep, earnest tone. “In my letter she says that you are her friend. You don’t know her true character, I suppose,” his well-beloved added, looking earnestly into his eyes. “If you did you would not visit her.”
“She lives in an air of the most severe respectability,” he said. “I dined at the Villa Fortunée the night before last, and found her an extremely pleasant hostess.”
She smiled. Then, while driving along the Avenue de la Gare to the station she told him of Mariette’s past in similar words to those used by Madame Bertholet. He sat listening eagerly, but a dark shadow crossed his features when, in conclusion, she added, “Such, unfortunately, is the woman who is to be bribed to marry you.”
They alighted, obtained their tickets, crossed the platform, and entered the rapide. It was crowded with people going to Monte Carlo, and the tunnels rendered the journey hot, dusty and unpleasant. Nevertheless the distance was not far, and when half-an-hour later they were ascending the steep winding way which led up to the rock of Monaco, Liane’s heart sank within her, for she feared that she was acting unwisely.
“It is very remarkable that Mariette should have written to us both in this manner,” George was saying as he strolled on beside the pale-faced graceful girl. “Evidently she desires to consult us upon some matter of urgency. Perhaps it concerns us both. Who knows?”
“It may,” she answered mechanically. “She is not, however, a person to trust. Women of her character have, alas! neither feeling nor honour.”
“Is she, then, so notoriously bad?” he asked in surprise.
“You know who and what I am,” she answered, turning to him, her grave grey eyes fixed upon his. “I have been forced against my inclination to frequent the gambling-rooms through months, nay years, and I knew Mariette Lepage long ago as the most vicious of all the women who hovered about the tables in search of dupes.”
By her manner he saw that she was annoyed, and jealous that he should have visited and dined with this woman so strangely referred to in his father’s will, and he hastened to re-assure her that there was but one woman in the world for him.
“Then you will not marry her?” she cried eagerly. “Do not, for my sake. If you knew all you would rather cast the money into yonder sea than become her husband.”
“Well,” he said, “it is imperative that she should be offered the bribe to become my wife. If she refuses I shall gain fifty thousand pounds. I have thought of buying her refusal by offering to divide equally with her the sum I shall obtain.”
“Excellent!” she cried, enthusiastically. “I never thought of that. If she will do so the cruel punishment your father intended will be turned to pleasure, and you will be twenty-five thousand pounds the richer.”
“I will approach her,” he said, after brief hesitation. “You know, darling, that I love you far too well to contemplate marriage with any other woman.”
“But remember, I can never become your wife,” she observed huskily, her eyes behind her veil filled to overflowing with tears. “I am debarred from that.”
“Ah! no,” he cried, “don’t say that. Let us hope on.”
“All hope within me is dead,” she answered gloomily. “I care nothing now for the future. In a few brief days we are leaving here, and I shall say farewell, George, never again to meet you.”
“You always speak so strangely and so dismally,” he said. “You will never tell me anything of the reason you are so irrevocably bound to Zertho. In the old days at Stratfield you always took me into your confidence.”
“Yes, yes,” she answered, quickly. “I would tell you everything if I could – but I dare not. You would hate me.”
“Hate you. Why?”
“You could no longer grasp my hand or kiss my lips,” she faltered. “No, you must not, you shall not know, for I could not bear that you of all men should spurn me, leave me, and remember me only with loathing. I could not bear it. I would rather kill myself.”
She was trembling, her breast rose and fell with the exertion of the steep ascent, and her face was blanched and haggard. Her attitude, whenever he referred to Zertho, always mystified and puzzled him. Had she not spoken vaguely of some strange crime?
Yet he loved her with all the strength of his being, and the sight of her terrible anxiety and dread pained him beyond measure. He was ready and willing to do anything to assist and liberate her from the mysterious thraldom, nevertheless she preserved a silence dogged and complete. He strove to discern a way out of the complicated situation, but could discover none.
“Have you ever been to the Villa Fortunée before?” he asked presently, after a long and painful silence, when they had crossed the sunny square before the Prince’s palace, and were strolling along the road which skirted the rock with the small blue bay to their left and the white houses of Monte Carlo gleaming beyond.
“No,” she answered. “I had no idea Mariette, ‘The Golden Hand,’ lived here. She used always to live at the little bijou villa in the Rue Cotta at Nice.”
“The Golden Hand!” he exclaimed, laughing. “Why do you call her that?”
“It is the name she has earned at the tables because of her extraordinary good fortune,” Liane answered. “Her winnings at trente-et-quarante are said to have been greater perhaps than any other player during the past few years.”
At that moment the road turned sharply, almost at right angles, and Liane found herself before the great white house where lived the notorious gambler, the woman whose powdered, painted face every habitué of Monte Carlo knew so well, and whose luck was the envy of them all.
She read the name of the villa upon the marble tablet, and for a moment hesitated and held back, fearing to meet face to face the woman she held in fear. But George had already entered the gateway and ascended the steps, and she felt impelled to follow, a few moments later taking a seat in the cool handsome salon where the flowers diffused a sweet subtle perfume, and the light was softly tempered by the closed sun-shutters.
Liane and her lover sat facing each other, the silence being complete save for the swish of the sea as it broke ever and anon upon the brown rocks deep below. A moment later, however, there was a sound of the opening and shutting of doors, and with a frou-frou of silk there entered “The Golden Hand.”
She wore an elegant dress of pale mauve trimmed with velvet, and as she came forward into the room a smile of welcome played upon her lips, but George thought she looked older and more haggard than when he had visited her only two days before.
Closing the door quietly behind her, she crossed almost noiselessly to where they were seated, and sinking upon a settee expressed pleasure at receiving their visit.
“I was not exactly certain whether you would come, you know,” she exclaimed, with a coquettish laugh. “I was afraid Liane would refuse.”
“You told me that you were her friend,” he said.
“And that was the entire truth,” she answered.
Liane faced her, her countenance pale, her lips parted. She had held back in fear when this woman had entered, but the calm expression and pleasant smile had now entirely disarmed her suspicions. Yet she feared lest this woman whom she had known in the old days, should divulge the secret she had kept from her lover. George, the man she adored, was, she knew, fast slipping away from her. On the one hand she was forced to marry Zertho, while on the other this very woman, whom she feared, was to be bribed to accept her lover as husband. Liane looked into her face and tried to read her thoughts. But her countenance had grown cold and mysterious.
“You were not always my friend,” she said at last, in a low, strained tone.
“No, not always,” the woman admitted, in English. “I have seldom been generous towards my own sex. I was, it is true, Liane, until recently, your enemy,” she added, in a sympathetic tone. “I should be now if it were not for recent events.”
“You intend, then, to prove my friend,” Liane gasped excitedly, half-rising from her chair. “You – you will say nothing.”
“On the contrary, I shall speak the truth.”
“Ah, no,” she wailed. “No, spare me that. Think! Think! surely my lot is hard enough to bear! Already I have lost George, the man I love.”
“Your loss is my gain,” Mariette Lepage said slowly. “You have lost a lover, while I have found a husband.”
“And you will marry him – you?” she cried, dismayed.
“I know what are your thoughts,” the other said. “My reputation is unenviable – eh?”
Liane did not answer; her lover sat rigid and silent.
“Well,” went on the woman known at the tables as “The Golden Hand,” “I cannot deny it. All that you see here, my house, my furniture, my pictures, the very clothes I wear, I have won fairly at the tables, because – well, because I am, I suppose, one of the fortunate ones. Others sit and ruin themselves by unwise play, while I sit beside them and prosper. Because of that, I am pointed out by men and women as a kind of extraordinary species, and shunned by all save the professional players to whom you and I belong. But,” she added, gazing meaningly at Liane, “you know my past as well as I know yours.”
The words caused her to turn pale as death, while her breath came and went quickly. She was in momentary dread lest a single word of the terrible truth she was striving to hide should involuntarily escape her.
“Yes,” Liane said, “I knew you well when I went daily to the Casino, and have often envied you, for while my father lost and lost you invariably won and crammed handsful of notes into your capacious purse. At first I envied you, but soon I grew to hate you.”
“You hated me, because even into my hardened heart love had found its way,” she said reproachfully.
“I hated you because I knew that you loved only gold. I had seen sufficient of you to know that you had no higher thought than of the chances of the red or the black. You had been aptly nicknamed ‘The Golden Hand.’”
“And I, too, envied you,” the other said. “I envied you your grace and your beauty; yet often I felt sorry for you. You seemed so jaded and world-weary, although so young, that it was a matter of surprise that they gave you your carte at the Bureau.”
“Now, strangely enough, we are rivals,” Liane observed.
“Only because you are beneath the thrall of one who holds you in his power,” Mariette answered. “You love each other so fervently that I could never be your rival, even if you were free.”
“But, alas! I am not free,” she said, in deep despondency, her eyes downcast, her head resting upon her hand.
“True,” said the other, shrugging her shoulders. “Circumstances have combined to weave about you a web in which you have become enmeshed. You are held by bonds which, alone and unassisted, you cannot break asunder.”
Liane, overcome with emotion she could no longer restrain, covered her face with her hands and burst into a torrent of tears. In an instant her lover was beside her, stroking her hair fondly, uttering words of sympathy and tenderness, and endeavouring to console her.
Mariette Lepage sat erect, motionless, silent, watching them.
“Ah!” she said slowly at length, “I know how fondly you love each other. I have myself experienced the same grief, the same bitterness as that which is rending your hearts at this moment, even though I am believed to be devoid of every passion, of every sentiment, and of every womanly feeling.”
“Let me go!” Liane exclaimed, in a voice broken by sobs, rising unsteadily from her chair. “I – I cannot bear it.”
“No, remain,” the woman said in a firm tone, a trifle harsher than before. “I asked you here to-day because I wished to speak to you. I invited the man you love, because it is but just that he should hear what I have to say.”
“Ah!” she sobbed bitterly. “You will expose me – you who have only just declared that you are my friend!”
“Be patient,” the other answered. “I know your fear. You dread that I shall tell a truth which you dare not face.”
She hung her head, sinking back rigidly into her chair with lips compressed. George stood watching her, like a man in a dream. He saw her crushed and hopeless beneath the terrible load upon her conscience, held speechless by some all-consuming terror, trembling like an aspen because she knew this woman intended to divulge her secret.
With all his soul he loved her, yet in those painful moments the gulf seemed to widen between them. Her white haggard face told him of the torture that racked her mind.
“Speak, Liane,” he cried in a low intense tone. “What is it you fear? Surely the truth may be uttered?”
“No, no!” she cried wildly, struggling to her feet. “No, let me leave before she tells you. I knew instinctively that, after all, she was not my friend.”
“Hear me before you judge,” Mariette exclaimed firmly.
“Cannot you place faith in one who declares herself ready to assist you?” he added.
She shook her head, holding her breath the while, and glaring at him with eyes full of abject fear.
“Why?”
“Ah! don’t ask me, George,” she murmured, with her chin sunk upon the lace on her breast. “I am the most wretched woman on earth, because I have wilfully deceived you. I had no right to love you; no right to let you believe that I was pure and good; no right to allow you to place faith in me. You will hate me when you know all.”
“For what reason?” he cried, dismayed.
“My life is overshadowed by evil,” she answered vaguely, in a despairing voice. “I have sinned before God, and must bear the punishment.”
“There is forgiveness for those who repent,” the woman observed slowly, a hard, cold expression upon her face, as she watched the desperate girl trembling before her.
“There is none for me,” she cried in utter despondency, haunted by fear, and bursting again into tears. “None! I can hope for no forgiveness.”
At that instant the door of the room was opened, and two persons entered unannounced. George and Liane were standing together in the centre of the saloon, while Mariette was still seated with her back to the door, so that the new comers did not at first notice her presence.
The men were Brooker and Zertho.
“We have followed you here with your lover,” exclaimed the Prince angrily, addressing Liane. “We saw you driving to the station together, and watched you. We – ”
“The Golden Hand” hearing the voice, turned, and springing to her feet faced them.
“Mariette!” Zertho gasped, blanched and aghast, the words dying from his pale lips. In their eagerness to follow Liane and George they had entered the villa, not knowing that therein dwelt the woman from whom they intended on the morrow to fly.
Chapter Nineteen
The Miniature
Zertho gave her a single glance full of hatred, then, with a gesture of impatience after a few quick words, turned to make his exit. As he did so, however, he found himself face to face with a man who, standing in the doorway, resolutely barred his passage.
He stood glaring at him as one stupefied. The man was Max Richards.
“No,” the latter said. “Now that you have chosen to call here uninvited it is at least polite to remain at the invitation of your hostess.”
“Let me pass!” he cried threateningly.
“I shall not!” Richards answered with firmness, his back to the half-closed door, while Brooker stood watching the scene, himself full of fear and dismay.
“This is a conspiracy!” Zertho exclaimed, his trembling hands clenched, his face livid.
“Listen!” Mariette cried, her cheeks flushed with excitement as she stepped boldly forward and faced him. “This is a counterplot only to combat your dastardly intrigue. The innocent shall no longer suffer for the sins of the guilty.”
“The guilty!” he echoed, with an insolent laugh. “You mean yourself!”
“I am not without blame, I admit,” she answered quickly, her flashing eyes darting him an angry look. “Nevertheless, I have to-day determined to make atonement; to end for ever this conspiracy of silence.” Then, turning to Liane, who was standing whitefaced and aghast, she said, “First, before I speak, it will be necessary for you to make confession. Explain to George of what nature is this bond which holds you to yonder man.”
“No, I – I cannot,” she protested, covering her face with her hands.
“But it is necessary,” she urged. “Speak! Fear nothing. Then the truth shall be made known.”
The slim, fair-faced girl stood with bent head, panting and irresolute, while all waited for the words to fall from her dry, white lips. At last, with eyes downcast, she summoned courage, and in a low, hoarse voice said, —
“Zertho compelled me to accept him because – because he can prove that my father murdered Charles Holroyde.”
“Your father a murderer!” her lover echoed. “Impossible.”
“Let me speak,” Mariette interrupted, hastily. “Two winters ago I met in Nice a wealthy young Englishman named Holroyde. We saw one another often at Monte Carlo, and our acquaintance ripened into love. He offered me marriage, and I accepted; but one night, after winning a considerable sum, he returned to Nice about eleven o’clock, was waylaid in a narrow lane running from the Promenade des Anglais into the Rue de France, robbed and murdered. Thus was the man I loved cruelly snatched from me just at the moment when happiness was in my reach; just within a few weeks of making me his wife. This villa, which I have since bought, he designated as our home, and this ring upon my finger is the one he gave me. The crime, enshrouded in mystery, has not yet been forgotten either by the police or the people of Nice. It seemed amazing that such a dastardly assassination could take place so swiftly without a single person hearing any cry, yet the police had no clue. The murderer, who had no doubt accompanied or followed his victim from Monte Carlo, must have struck him down with unerring blow and escaped, leaving no trace behind. Yet there was nevertheless a witness of the deed – a witness who is present.”
“A witness!” gasped Liane.
“Yes,” Mariette said. “Max Richards will tell you what he saw.”
The man indicated, still standing with his back to the door, smiled triumphantly at Zertho, then said, —
“Yes, it is true. I witnessed the murder of Charles Holroyde. On that night I had left the Café de la Régence, and crossing the road overtook, in the Avenue de la Gare, Nelly Bridson, Captain Brooker’s adopted daughter. We had met before on several occasions, and after she had told me that she had been to a chemist’s to obtain something for Liane, who was not well, I offered, as it was late, to accompany her as far as her house in the Rue Dalpozzo. To this she made no objection, and we walked together along the Rue de France as far as the corner of the street wherein she lived. The moon, however, was bright upon the sea, and at my suggestion she consented to accompany me for a stroll along the Promenade. To reach the latter we had to pass through a narrow lane, which we had just entered, when we saw straight before us figures of men struggling together. Instantly I dragged Nelly back into the deep shadow where we could see without being observed. Suddenly I heard one of the men cry in English ‘My God! I’m stabbed!’ and he staggered back and fell. Then, discerning for the first time that the man had been attacked by two assailants, I rushed forward, but already they had bent and secured the contents of their victim’s pocket, and as I approached one of them threw the knife away. That man I recognised in the moonlight as Captain Brooker!”
A low groan escaped the lips of the pale-faced, agitated man who had been thus denounced, and he stood paralysed by fear, clutching the back of a chair for support.
“The man, however, who threw away the knife he had snatched up, was not the murderer,” Richards continued, in a clear, calm voice. “Both Nelly and myself were afterwards in complete accord that it was his companion who had, in the mêlée, struck the fatal blow. The murderer was the man there – Zertho d’Auzac.”
“It’s a lie!” cried the man indicated, “a foul, abominable falsehood! Brooker crept up behind him and tried to gag him with a scarf, when, finding that he was too powerful for him, he struck him full in the breast. In an instant he was dead.”
“Your story is an entire fabrication,” Richards answered, in a deprecatory tone. “We were both quite close to you, and saw your murderous face in the moonlight at the moment when you killed your victim. To us it seemed as though you alone had acted with premeditation, and that instead of assisting you, Brooker was endeavouring to release Holroyde, for I heard him cry in dismay, ‘Good God! Zertho, what are you doing?’ It was you who bent and secured the notes, while Brooker snatched up the knife, held it for an instant in hesitation, then seeing me approach in the darkness, flung it away and fled after you. I sped along the Promenade for some distance, leaving Nellie beside the prostrate man, but you both escaped, and when I returned she had gone. She had, I suppose, rushed home, fearing to be discovered there. But the young Englishman was already lifeless, therefore I left the spot hurriedly. Next morning, when the town was in a state of great excitement over the murdered Englishman, Nelly called at my rooms and begged me to say nothing to the police, because she felt certain the Captain would be arrested and convicted as an accessory. Therefore, in obedience to her wish, I have kept my knowledge secret until such time as I should choose to make the truth known.”
“Is that the actual truth?” Brooker asked, agape in wonderment.
“It is the entire truth of what I saw with my own eyes – of what I am prepared to swear in any court of justice.”
“So confused were the memories of that terrible incident that I have all along believed that I myself was the actual murderer,” said the Captain. “That night I had drunk more wine than usual, and remember very little of the occurrence save that I held the knife in my hand, and that on the following morning when I awoke I found my hands stained with blood, while in my pocket were some of the stolen notes. Zertho told me, when we met next day, that, in a frenzy of madness at having lost almost every sou I possessed, I had attacked Holroyde suddenly, murdered him, and filched his winnings from his pocket. He said, however, he would preserve my secret, and did so until a few weeks ago, when Liane refused to become his wife. Then he declared that if I did not compel her to marry him he would denounce me. I begged him to at least spare Liane, but he was inexorable. Therefore I was compelled to make confession to her, and she, rather than I should pay the terrible penalty, sacrificed all her love and happiness for my sake.”
His voice was broken with emotion, and although his lips moved, he could utter no further words.
George, standing beside his well-beloved, grasped her tiny hand and pressed it tenderly. At last he knew the secret of her acceptance of Zertho’s offer, and recognised all the tortures she must have suffered in order to save her father from degradation and shame.
“He lies!” Zertho cried, his sallow face bloodless. He saw how ingeniously he had been entrapped. “It was he himself who killed Holroyde.”
“If so,” exclaimed Max Richards, “why have you paid me so well for my silence?”
He did not reply.
“You are silent,” he went on. “Then I will tell you. You were shrewd enough to see that while I held my tongue you would still hold Captain Brooker in your power, and through the pressure you could place upon him, secure Liane as your wife. I knew this all along, although you believed me to be entirely ignorant of it. Still I allowed you to pay me, and I can assure you that the money you gave me with such bad grace often came in very useful,” he laughed. “I am not a Prince, and although I may be an adventurer, I thank Heaven I’m not an assassin.”
“I paid you all you demanded, every penny, yet now you turn upon me. It is the way of all blackmailers,” Zertho cried, still livid with anger.
“I speak the truth in order to save from your merciless clutches one woman whose fair name has never been besmirched. I speak for Liane’s sake.”
Zertho turned from him with a fierce imprecation on his lips, declaring that the whole story was a tissue of falsehoods, and denouncing his companion Brooker as the actual assassin.
“You forget,” said Richards, “that in addition to myself there was a second witness, Nelly Bridson, the girl with whom your victim had carried on a mild and harmless flirtation prior to meeting Mariette. You forget that she was with me, and actually saw you commit the deed.”
This truth rendered him voiceless.
“May I, in future, enjoy an absolutely clear conscience that I had no hand in the actual crime?” the Captain asked earnestly, turning to Richards.
“Certainly,” he answered, quickly. “Both Nelly and myself saw every movement clearly, for the moon was shining bright as day. We heard you shout in horror and dismay to the assassin; we saw the blow struck; we saw the theft committed, and watched you pick up the knife, which you threw down again instantly at the moment when I rushed forward.”
“I was, alas, only half-conscious of my actions,” he answered. “But the enormity of the crime must have sobered me instantly, for I remember a man approaching – who it was I was not aware until this moment – and knowing that we had been discovered and were in peril, flew for my life back to the Promenade, reaching home by a circuitous route about midnight.”
“You need have no further fear of this man,” Richards assured him. “His plan was ingenious, to shift the crime from his own shoulders to yours, and at the same time to marry Liane, but fortunately his own actions convict him. Liane has shown bravery and self-denial, which should further endear her to the heart of the man who loves her, and if the truth I have told brings back her happiness and peace of mind I shall not have spoken in vain.”
“I have much to thank you for,” Liane faltered, her face bright with a new-born happiness. “You have indeed revived within me hope, life and love. I knew this man was crafty and cruel, but I never dreamed that he himself had committed the crime with which he charged my father. I saw that he was inexorable and relentless, and was compelled to wrench myself from George, whom I loved, and promise to become the wife of – of this assassin.”
“Assassin!” cried Zertho. “No, the prospect of becoming Princess d’Auzac proved too attractive for you! It was because both you and your father wanted money and position, that you were ready to become my wife.”
“We desired nothing from you,” she answered proudly. “Both of us detested you when you found us in England, and thrust yourself upon us. Upon the gold of the guilty there always lies a curse.”
But shrugging his shoulders contemptuously, he said nothing. He fidgetted, anxious to escape, for although he preserved a calm, insolent, almost indifferent manner, he nevertheless knew that concealment of the truth was now no longer possible. At the very instant when he had felt his position the most secure, his perfidy, his cunning, and his crime had been laid bare before them all.
He clenched his hands, muttering an oath behind his set teeth, while his dark eyes, with a glance of hatred in them, flashed with an unnatural brilliance.
For a few moments no one spoke. The silence was complete save for the roar of the waves on the rocks outside and the sobs that now and then escaped Liane. She clung to George, burying her beautiful head upon his shoulder.
At last Mariette spoke, saying, —
“There is yet another fact which is, in itself, sufficient proof of this man’s unscrupulousness. One witness of his crime still lives; the other, Nelly Bridson, is dead. Nelly was once my friend. Unknown to Captain Brooker I knew her intimately as a bright girl months before Charles Holroyde met and admired her. Indeed, it was by her that I was introduced to the man who afterwards loved me, and was so brutally done to death. When at last she became aware that her lover had forsaken her some ill-feeling arose between us. I knew that she must hate me, but I treated her jealousy with unconcern, and remained towards her the same as before. In my heart, however, I envied her her youth and good looks, and feared that Charles Holroyde might return to his first love. But, alas! he was murdered mysteriously – by whom I knew not, until three days ago, when Max Richards divulged to me the truth. Then I resolved that punishment should fall upon the guilty. Well, I hated Nelly because I knew that Holroyde had admired her, and I likewise hated Liane, entertaining a suspicion that because she always avoided me she had spoken of me detrimentally to the man whom I loved. After Holroyde’s death I left the Riviera and went to Paris, to Wiesbaden, to Vienna, caring little whither I went, until at last, about a year afterwards, I returned to Monte Carlo, and heard from one of Captain Brooker’s friends that he and the girls had left long ago for England, where they had resolved to live in the future. Immediately after my lover’s death luck had forsaken me entirely, and I passed a spurious bank-note for a large amount at Marseilles. The police were endeavouring to find me, and it was to avoid arrest that I was travelling. I wrote several times to Nelly and received replies, stating how happy they were in their country home in England, and how much more peaceful and enjoyable it was than at Nice. Still there was one matter upon which I desired to see her, a matter connected with the family of the man who was dead. He had, I believed, told her of his relations in England, but he had spoken no word of them to me. I had in my possession a Cosway miniature he had one day left at my house, an antique portrait of an elderly lady, beautifully painted on ivory and set round with brilliants. He had mentioned to me that it was an heirloom, and I desired to return it to the family if I could find them. With that object I went to England, and one summer’s evening met Nelly by appointment in a country lane a short distance from Stratfield Mortimer.”
